| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: And he cries to Halfred the Scald,
Gray-bearded, wrinkled, and bald,
"Sing!"
"Sing me a song divine,
With a sword in every line,
And this shall be thy reward."
And he loosened the belt at his waist,
And in front of the singer placed
His sword.
"Quern-biter of Hakon the Good,
Wherewith at a stroke he hewed
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Options by O. Henry: hand it over again to the enemy without a struggle.
"Yes, suh; I got it in my hand, suh. I'm gwine give it to you right
away in jus' a minute. Old Missus told me to put it in young Marse
Blandford's hand and tell him to wear it for the family pride and
honor. It was a mighty longsome trip for an old nigger man to make--
ten thousand miles, it must be, back to old Vi'ginia, suh. You've
growed mightily, young marster. I wouldn't have reconnized you but
for yo' powerful resemblance to old marster."
With admirable diplomacy the old man kept his eyes roaming in the
space between the two men. His words might have been addressed to
either. Though neither wicked nor perverse, he was seeking for a
Options |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Astoria by Washington Irving: individual pictures, endeared to us by the associations of early
life, when, as yet a stripling youth, we have sat at the
hospitable boards of the "mighty Northwesters," the lords of the
ascendant at Montreal, and gazed with wondering and inexperienced
eye at the baronial wassailing, and listened with astonished ear
to their tales of hardship and adventures. It is one object of
our task, however, to present scenes of the rough life of the
wilderness, and we are tempted to fix these few memorials of a
transient state of things fast passing into oblivion; for the
feudal state of Fort William is at an end, its council chamber is
silent and deserted; its banquet hall no longer echoes to the
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